U.S. Pat. No. 4,001,742 entitled "Circuit Breaker Having Improved Operating Mechanism" describes a circuit breaker capable of interrupting several thousand amperes of circuit current at several hundred volts potential. As described therein, the operating mechanism is in the form of a pair of powerful operating springs that are restrained from separating the circuit breaker contacts by means of a latching system. Once the operating mechanism has responded to separate the contacts, the operating springs must be recharged to supply sufficient motive force to the movable contact arms that carry the contacts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,701 entitled "Operating Mechanism for High Ampere-Rated Circuit Breaker" describes an operating mechanism capable of immediately resetting the circuit breaker operating mechanism to reclose the contacts without having to recharge the circuit breaker operating springs immediately after opening the circuit breaker contacts.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/203,062 filed Feb. 28, 1994 entitled "Rating Module Unit for High Ampere-Rated Circuit Breaker" describes a circuit breaker closing spring modular unit whereby the circuit breaker operating springs are contained within a separate unit from the operating mechanism and can be installed within the circuit breaker enclosure without disturbing the operating mechanism assembly.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/214,522 filed Mar. 18, 1994 entitled "Handle Operator Assembly for High Ampere-Rated Circuit Breaker" describes a handle operator unit capable of generating large spring charging forces by means of an externally-accessible manually operated handle. A ratchet and pawl assembly allows the manually-applied charging forces to be applied to the operating springs. Once the circuit breaker operating mechanism closing springs are fully-charged, some means must be employed to release the pawl to allow the closing springs to become fully operational.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/210,187 filed Mar. 28, 1994 entitled "A Latching Arrangement for High Ampere-rated Circuit Breaker Operating Springs" describes a two stage latching arrangement that insures that the operating springs are first brought to their fully charged condition and then allowed to operate free from the ratchet and pawl assembly.
After the circuit breaker operating springs have responded to close the circuit breaker contacts, the springs must be re-charged to their stored energy condition to provide closing force after the opening springs have separated the circuit breaker contacts upon the occurrence of an overcurrent condition.
One purpose of this invention is to mechanically ensure that the circuit breaker closing springs have completely responded before allowing resetting of the charging system to re-charge the closing springs.